The ETD Format---a Sneak Preview
 

It is tentatively called "The Electron-Tunneling Digital" format or "ETD". An old college chum who's deep in the secret areas of video research, is a key figure in its development. He chose me to leak out this bit of information, as I'm the only one he could trust not to reveal his identity or the location of his lab.

It may become the end-all of digital recording formats, as no other could be more accurate or pack more data on as small a space. Simply described, it's largely an adaptation of electron-tunneling microscope technology. Its medium is small cubes of silicon, that contain perfectly straight tracks of molecules, billions of them per square centimeter. Just as an electron microscope does, its recording gun knocks electrons off atoms, ionizing them, but in a digitally-coded pattern, as it runs along a track. Several dozen adjacent molecular tracks receive parts of a video signal, with some used for control and time-coding data. The gun shifts from one track to the next, in 1/5,000th of a second. To read the recording, another gun senses the positive charge in the ionized atoms along the tracks by replacing their missing electrons. The irregularity in the gun's electron beam, whenever one was accepted by a positively-charged atom, is the means for the detection. The pattern of this action is converted back into a video signal. Another gun follows the reader by 1/60th of a second and by using the signal that was just read, re-ionizes the atoms in an identical pattern, preserving the recording for the next reading pass.

It is estimated that every movie and TV show ever made, could be recorded on two cubic inches of the medium, with room to spare for special director's features. An ETD camcorder with a cubic centimeter of silicon, would record everything several generations of your family could shoot in their lifetimes. They are working on a connecting protocol that would translate to and from every known format, with no loss of quality. And, there'd be an end to the contentious debates about incompatible videotape lubricants.

The research group plans to introduce working models using ETD, exactly one year from today. They're trying to pick a color for themselves, but it appears all the best ones are already taken. Don't ask me for any more details-----as I said, I'm sworn to secrecy.

...then Sony takes out a pen and check-book... the mysterious device is thus locked away into a dark vault in an undisclosed location. Never to be seen or threaten their sales again.... Ahhhh, progresss. : )

I hope this is not an April's fool joke ;) But oddly enough, there is something out there promising this sort of thing.

For years we have been promised, short term release of a system that uses a micro array of tunneling heads, like what you talk about (years before that, I thought it was hard drive like heads) on a card that plugged into the card reader ports. I think the name is something like millipede. I think I posted about a 100GB version before (where is that, it would be useful).

The data densities that you quote sound suspect though, even for 3D, which is what seems to be implied here, but tunneling is a surface technology, not 3D as far as I know.

The best April fool's jokes contain enough elements of truth and familiarity, to catch a lot of people. The real joke is, that some form of ETD actually will be used for recording someday. Regarding recording density, this is an ionization system at the atomic level. How many atoms would there be on a recording track that was .00001 microns wide and how many of those tracks could fit in a cubic centimeter of the medium? Of course, I was stating a roughly-calculated capacity, that was based on a high, theoretical level of efficiency. Undoubtedly in practice, less capacity could be achieved. But if only 25% or even 5% efficiency was possible, the capacity, compared to existing recording formats, would be huge.

I was describing a 3-D system, but there have been advances in electron-beam technology, that permit controled penetration in certain types of material. Undoubtedly, an improved type of medium, that was based on silicon or perhaps another material, would be an essential part of the system. And, there's also the possibility of using neutron-bombardment as a means of actualization, but that would require a long step beyond our current knowledge.

Even if only a 2-D, surface system was developed, the capacity of an atomic recording format would be quite large. Who knows, perhaps ETD could use the coating layer of tape. I'd be personally tickled, if we ended up still using a videotape format for this. Consider this: Some of the most innovative electronic systems and devices have been based on the musings of novelists and cartoonists of previous generations.

April fools joke aside, ion implantation has been used in the semiconductor manufacturing process since the mid to late 1970's. As is usually the case with technology, the first implanters were somewhat crude and inaccurate with respect to dosing and penetration. When I left the industry last year, our current crop of ion implanters had improved to a uniformity of just under 2% across the entire surface of the wafer. The dosing, or amount of ions implanted per cm2 is determined by beam current. The penetration level that Steven mentioned is controlled by the amount of energy (measured in KeV) that is used. That accuracy has been improved also with the use of off energy filters such that only ions with the exact same acceleration potential reach the target wafer.

So a few years from now this will likely not be a joke at all.

-gb-

Stephen,

I must admit, I was so tired/off color I read bits and pieces. I thought you were saying billions of storage sites per centimetre, not tracks, and the Tunneling Microscope technique, so i quickly surmised that it just was not going to cut it. Apart from that it looked suspicious. Even with billions of tracks, the amount of home video/film, and pro video/film shot out there was just not going to fit. Even a cubic centimeter, I don't know. Plus the accuracy effects of a system that uses penetration through intermediate sites during constant rewrites. I would like to see how they handle that. Being able to dope a chip with Ions, and being able to independently address, and rewrite, them are two different things.

For tape it would be nice, I have come up with a new tape design that has potential to store 100's of Terabytes, even without ETD. With ETD, my goodness, could do a new Tape title called "The Data Life of Earth-historical recordings".

Wayne, that's the advantage of proposing new formats on April 1st-----the parameters are unlimited.

I would pick something that is totally real, but sounds totally unbelievable, myself (New Scientist does this on April as well). That way after people go through all the process of believing it isn't true, they then find out that it is. This sometimes intentionally happens to me in forums around the web already, when I share something some people don't know about. But it would be good to do a big one for an April fools joke.

Another characteristic of a good April fool's joke, is that many people will never know if it's real or not-----and you will never tell them. Over my life, I've run several serial practical jokes on friends. One of them lasted 19 years and I will never spoil things for either myself or these friends by revealing what actually happened. I feel confident that none of them subscribe to this forum.

Heh, so much for secrecy if your posting it. Im not a physicist nor can I spell it, but I can almost detect a hint of b.s. in this. Just my opinion. We probably won't know for a year now will we.

I really hope that RED is for real too. listening to rumors can be such a waste of time, but make you feel like a kid waiting for Christmas morning, but instead it turns into a want in mourning. Lost wants are such a disappointment. I guess I've experienced too many of these to really believe the hype anymore.

All I can say is, believe what your parents told you and your grandparents too. Don't believe everything you read, and for those who think, if its on the internet is must be true. If its too good to be true it probably is, and don't believe it until you see it. Otherwise, your excitement is just fair game for the jesters in life who are committed to making everyone believe what they have to say and take away the faith we have in each other.

Ok I'm done.

That is one of the problems, there is always somebody out there willing to try a lie and take it too far, bend it to test it, and ruin life for everybody else under a load of .... Life generally works a lot easier if you can trust people. Nothing wrong with information, correct information.

Thanks

Wayne.

That should be "unintentionally". Not like me to miss something like that.

Just like something out of "Star Trek".

Excuse me is thie DVI-BS board? I think not. A person labled "Trustee" would probably not stoop to such low depths as Stephen McDonald has, OOOoops, he is a "Trustee".

Just goes to show you, can't trust'ee anyone one these days.

Well, I guess that's why April Fool's Day and Area 51 were established, so low-lifes like me could have their fun. I guess this illustrates what I said about some people never being able to know for sure whether such things are true or not. I've read that the ability to get a joke, is a mark of intelligence.

David, I suppose that is why it is called "Now, For Something Completely Different... > Area 51" you sort of expect that here sometimes.

But there is also a mark of even higher intelligence, to identify when/what/how/and to what extent to joke. I don't think joking is evil, but it can be done rightly or wrongly. So telling people what's not truth is important.

Now, speaking of "Star Trek" I have known a few people with access to some pretty interesting stuff, that normal people just don't know about. While I have never heard of a system like J is suggesting, I must say other technologies I have heard of in development, are not too far off of it, as far as advancement, and very "Star Trek" like. And I wish what you propose would be available soon, for my desktop.

J.

Here is that tech I mentioned.

http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/03/11/ib...lay/index.html

Wayne.

I take a humble bow to thee. Please accept my public apology for doubting you. This isn't my first public apology on this board. Maybe I should get my clutch fixed - if you know what I mean.

Wayne, this Nanotechnology Millipede format is more practical and more easily implemented than what I proposed. It will likely become a working system before the atomic-level ETD system can be realized. However, as much capacity as Millipede has got, ETD could store 100 times more, in the same size of media. But, how much do you actually need in storage space? Millipede boggles the mind in its potential and that would probably be far more than anyone could ever find enough junk to fill.

David,

This is not the same technology, you are OK, though I imagine that such a concept could be used as part of it.

J.,

Yes I first heard this many years ago (before that there was an optical addressing scheme, maybe even magnetic,I think by the same groups). So, have been waiting 10-15 years. Maybe it will be replaced by some other concept before it comes out, like your one ;).


Do you know, there are many different disk formats out there, than Blue ray, DVD HD. About five to eight years ago, there was a number announced, even with BillG, or Microsoft, investment, but they haven't come (though constellation DVD disk has had a recent announcement), and a number of holographic/3D substances. There was the Korean (or was that Vietnamese) announcement of 100GB red laser DVD disk, that I think used near field imaging lensing to achieve the density, and maybe another similar sounding one. There was the one that used slants/shapes to encode more. Constellation uses I think 10 layers. Holographic disks, Toshiba has another one as well as the inphase one due out this year, I have correspondence from one, probably ten years ago or so, promising soon to be released holographic disks. Has anybody heard of the Optical cards, credit card strips and whole card surfaces (80's)? Then there was optical paper, that eventually they used as a tape format. Japanese Holographic film. Some funny thing that changed the phase, or electron nature of surface, was around 27GB 8-9 years ago). One of the big ones, Blue Disks, from Australian National University, stores many light frequencies that hits it's rare earth materials surface (1980's) (became Optical RAM, used as a cache between the disk and the cache, that stored it's values temporarily) capacity of one million CD's (maybe it was several million).


Thanks

Wayne.

Here is some detailed information that Millipede Atomic Force Microscope based recording technology. Nice reading. :

http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/.../vettiger.html

Yes, indeed. Very nice reading. It's the kind of information that might take months to read and contemplate enough to really grasp all its implications. Once, when I read a presentation paper by two Russians on what they called, "Time-reversed Light", on amplified and self-targeting laser beams, it took me 6 months to absorb 5 pages. You notice that they alluded to molecular and atomic manipulation as a future area for their research. I first formed my ideas about this in 1991. We've moved into an age when fantasies and realities have only small separations or perhaps none at all.

I'm interested in this time reversed light, is that retro reflector, or what is it?

Fantasy and reality getting closer. I've been reading new scientist for decades, and since the late 80's this definitely is getting truer. Some of the stuff looked like it was Startrek, even Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (ice cube breaking stuff and probability) if that's possible.

That may be a way of describing it. The Americans have a different name for it, since they started working on it, but I can't recall it.

To put it simply, they found that if methane gas is compressed and put in a glass container and then hit with an agitation beam from the side, that it will reflect light back along the same trajectory on which it arrived. Ordinarily, light would refract at a complementary angle, instead of reversing and following the exact pathway, back to its source. If it went through a 10X amplifier on its incoming path, then it would go back through the amplifier on the return trip and come out at 100X of its intensity. Then, it would strike the light source with all that power. The return beam would have the tight integrity of a laser, if this was done correctly.

If the skies were swept with a light, and a solid object reflected a little of it back to the light-reverser, it would function as a pilot beam. The tiny bit of light could be amplified multiple times, to a massively destructive level and when reversed, might take out whatever reflected the light. This is the self-targeting aspect of it. This is a type of "Star-Wars" application, but there could be other uses for it.

In an lab in the USA, a graduate student unwittingly sacrificed part of her anatomy, to drive home the effectiveness of this system. Her colleagues were playing around with one of these self-targeting, pilot-beam activated light systems. They didn't yet grasp all the possibilities and dangers of what they were doing. At just the wrong moment, she entered the lab and one of the large, dangling earrings she was wearing reflected a blip of light into the amplifier/reflector. Instantly, a powerful burst of light energy struck out and hit the heavy metal earring, vaporizing her ear lobe. Fortunately, the earring fell to the floor, out of view of the light source. She apparently wasn't hurt, otherwise. Her colleagues felt her pain. This was about 16-18 years ago. Today, a typical grad student might be wearing metal in her lips, tongue, eyebrows, nose, ears and who knows where else. No need to explain the outcome of a similar incident, if it happened to someone with that amount of hardware showing.

Very funny, nice joke Steve ;)

Anyway, yeah that sort of thing, the Russians invented the tech in the early 80's, I had a Scientific America (or American Scientist) with it in, except then it was a black mirror. They were hush over how it worked. It disappeared and then I noticed retro reflectors, si I suppose that is them. The methane idea is interesting, if you can find a real technique that could do that of course.

The retro reflectors, work by light coming in and hitting a mirror, bouncing to another mirrors that bounces it out again on the same angle. I think it is a three interconnecting mirror system around a pivot point, though I think it might also have a central mirror feature around the pivot point. I don't remember exactly, I have studied it.

To confound the skeptics even further, research aims for 12.8 million GBytes in a cubic centimeter:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...890#post480890